


Settling In

by Englishtutor



Series: The Other Doctor Watson [12]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-24
Updated: 2016-03-24
Packaged: 2018-05-28 19:56:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6343093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Englishtutor/pseuds/Englishtutor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which John and Mary learn to be a married couple, albeit one with an unusual lifestyle:  for example, having an eccentric consulting detective as a best friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. First Thing in the Morning

The alarm went off at 6 a.m., and thanks to his years in the military, he was instantly awake and alert. His wife, however . . . his extraordinary, clever, beautiful, amazing wife . . . had no military training whatever. Waking up was one of the few things she did not do well.

This shortcoming of Mary’s had not mattered for the past three weeks, as they honeymooned in the Greek Isles (a wedding present from Mycroft). She could sleep in as much as she liked, and John, who could not sleep late to save his life, enjoyed simply watching her sleep. Sleeping was something she certainly did quite well. But now they were home (funny how quickly Mary’s flat had come to feel like home to him; but then, where ever Mary was, was home to John now). It was time to get back to the real world. 

“Time to get up, soldier!” John commanded. Mary responded by wrapping herself around him so that he couldn’t move. He tried a different tactic—he kissed her until she stirred a bit and made that cute humming sound she made. Now, he thought, she might be capable of human speech. “Come on, now, it’s time to get up,” he encouraged her.

“You get up,” she murmured, her words a contradiction because she was gripping him so tightly. He gently disentangled himself. She sighed. “You shower first. I’ll make breakfast.”

He was not taken in by her ruse. His wife was incapable of lying, but was not above deceit. She would make breakfast if she said she would, yes, but he did not believe for a minute that his breakfast would be ready when he got out of the shower. Sure enough, when he finished his shower she was still a motionless lump, right where he’d left her. Wrapping up in a towel, he ruthlessly stripped the blankets off the bed and said cheerfully, “Up you get! Time to go to work.” He ignored her pouty face. “Come on, you need to make lots of money to support me in the manner to which I’ve grown accustomed,” he grinned.

He was rewarded with a peal of laughter and a pillow in the face. He returned the bathroom and turned on his razor, watching out of the corner of his eye through the open door as she tumbled out of bed and pulled on her dressing gown.

The door between the bedroom and the sitting room had been left open, and why not? They were the only ones in the flat. Except, above the buzz of his razor, John heard Mary gasp and simultaneously a familiar baritone voice declare, “It’s about time you got out of bed.” 

Mary’s gasp was replaced by a warm chuckle. “Good lord, Sherlock, give a body some warning, unless you want to perform CPR on a coronary victim first thing in the morning.”

“It would be no bother,” Sherlock intoned. “I wouldn’t mind.”

John turned off his razor to listen for his wife’s response to this incredible invasion of their privacy. He was not disappointed. No ordinary, mundane questions for his wife: no “what are you doing here?” or “how did you get in?” Not even questions to which John would really like to hear the answer, such as “how long have you been sitting there listening to our private conversation?” or “what would you have done if I’d not bothered to put on my dressing gown?” No, Mary was awake now, and on her game.

“Eggs and toast all right?” she asked.

“I never eat breakfast,” Sherlock intoned disdainfully. “And tell John to hurry. We have to be at the morgue in half an hour.”

“Hurry, Captain,” Mary sang, not bothering to raise her voice. She knew he was listening. She moved on into the kitchen.

John stalked into the sitting room, still wrapped in his towel, razor in hand. There was Sherlock on Mary’s sofa tapping away on John’s laptop. “What’s the case?” he asked. He was aware that an observer would never have guessed that the friends had not seen each other in three weeks. Fond greetings were just not in their repertoire.

“Body found in the Thames, no water in the lungs, no obvious cause of death.”

John smiled grimly. “Welcome home, John,” he muttered.

“So I suggest you put some clothes on,” Sherlock said dryly, smirking.

“Why?” John demanded. “If you can go to Buckingham Palace wrapped in a sheet, I suppose I can show up at the morgue in a towel, can’t I?”

“If anyone can pull off that look, it’s you, John,” Mary called from the kitchen. “You might start a trend.”

John snorted and went to finish his shave and to dress. He could hear Mary’s cheerful voice talking to Sherlock from the kitchen. “I’ll have a key made for you, sweetheart, so you won’t have to alarm the neighbours by picking the lock every time.”

John chuckled. Mary was completely unfazed by his friend’s outrageous behaviour. And Sherlock was inexplicitly allowing himself to be called by an endearing pet name without protest. John Watson was a happy man.

When he emerged from the bedroom again, his extraordinary, clever, beautiful, amazing wife handed him his toast with fried eggs sandwiched between and a travel mug of tea. Sherlock, the man who never ate breakfast, was already half-way through his eggs-on-toast and had a similar cup in hand.

“Have a good day,” John kissed her thoroughly.

“Be careful, you two,” she admonished them. “Look after each other.”

“Come to Baker Street after work,” Sherlock told her. “We’ll bring you Chinese takeaway.”

John marvelled at his friend’s considerate offer of providing his wife’s dinner. He had realized from the moment he’d heard Sherlock’s voice that his former flatmate could more easily have texted him to meet at the morgue at a certain time, but had opted to go out of his way to pick him up in person. Obviously, John had been missed and Sherlock wanted to spend some time with him in the intimacy of a cab before they plunged back into work. It now warmed his heart to understand that Sherlock had missed Mary also, and had no doubt wished to spend a few minutes with her, as well, before beginning their day.

As they settled into their cab, John finally asked the question that had been on his mind since Sherlock had first made his presence known. “What would you have done if Mary had not put her dressing gown on before you surprised her in the sitting room?”

Sherlock gazed at him, intrigued. “Entrapment,” he declared.

“What do you mean?”

“What answer can I possibly give to that question that would not in some way give offense?”

John considered this statement. “True,” he admitted. “All right, never mind the past, then. After this, please knock before you walk into our flat. That’s rule number one.”

“Why should I, if Mary gives me a key?” Sherlock demanded.

John sighed. “Just do it, for me, okay? For my peace of mind.”

Sherlock sighed, as well. “Fine. What’s rule number two, then?”

“Well, I don’t know until you break it, do I?” John said reasonably. “How can I, in my wildest imagination, foresee all the possible outrageous, incongruous things you might do?” 

Sherlock gave this due consideration. “Fair enough,” he conceded. “And to answer your question, I would have averted my eyes in a gentlemanly fashion, while at the same time appreciating the obvious fact that you have married a very attractive woman.”

John had to admit that this was a good answer.


	2. Where There's Smoke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's hard to keep a smoking habit in London. Good news for breathing!

This is for my dear friend Prothoe, who has a love of sick fics. Happy birthday, my dear!

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He made his way slowly up the steps to his flat, in no hurry, basking in the moment. The case he had solved today—their first case since John had returned from his honeymoon cruise—had been a triumph of deductive reasoning. Sherlock felt extraordinarily pleased with himself, and John’s praise had warmed his soul. Three weeks, John had been gone: such a long time for a consulting detective to starve for a bit of appreciation! 

And there was the added bonus of the copious amounts of cigarette smoke.

Always tiresome about Sherlock’s smoking habit, John had been for the past six months or so even more obnoxious about it than ever. The slightest whiff of smoke sent the doctor into a rant of anti-smoking propaganda that rivalled anything published by the British Association for Cancer Research. He was a tyrant, and Sherlock had suffered for it.

But today, he and John had found themselves in the office of a suspect who was (apart from being a cold-blooded killer) an unapologetic chain-smoker. All windows were closed during their interrogation of the man, and the small room was blue with the most wondrous fumes. Sherlock, long starved for nicotine, had nearly forgotten the purpose of his visit there; he spent a long moment just breathing as he marinated in the smoke-filled atmosphere. John, politely trying not to cough, had tried to rush him along, finally simply leaving the room with red, streaming eyes. It seemed that his partner, while stoic and stalwart in the most dangerous of situations, was a complete namby pamby when it came to facing a bit of tobacco smoke.

Case solved, John had rushed back to his flat, eager to change into less-objectionably-smelling clothing—and, incidentally, also eager to see his new bride, whom he’d been mooning over in the most wearying fashion all day. Sherlock debated whether to shower and change immediately or savour the deliciously forbidden scent of cigarettes bit longer. Entering the door to his sitting room, he stopped and stared in astonishment. There, sleeping on his couch like Goldilocks in a fairy-tale, was Mary Watson, nee’ Morstan. Scattered about her were the left-overs of Chinese takeaway and an empty carton of ice cream. On the floor by her outstretched hand lay her phone, battery dead.

What could it mean? Why was John’s new wife not in her own flat, doing wifely things with her new husband? Sherlock mused over this new mystery. Of all the mysterious things on the earth, he often found that Mary Watson was truly the most unfathomable.

Then he remembered that, after she had cooked his breakfast that morning, he had invited her to his flat for Chinese takeaway after she got off of her shift at the clinic. And it was now. . . .Oh! Two a.m.! So, she had waited as long as she could, at last ordering their dinner herself, finally eating it all (had there been enough for them all? Yes, from the looks of the empty containers, Mary had eaten enough food for three people!) and then had found and helped herself to Sherlock’s own secret stash of ice cream. And then, at last, she had fallen asleep, still faithfully waiting for her boys to come home. No doubt John was at their flat now, frantically calling her dead mobile phone.

Sherlock’s phone sang into life. He walked into the kitchen to answer it in order not to disturb Goldilocks.

“She’s here, John,” Sherlock stated without preamble. “She fell asleep on the sofa.”

“Thank god,” John breathed, sounding overly-wired. “I thought she’d been kidnapped or something. . . . She hasn’t been answering my texts for hours, so I’d assumed she’d given up on us, gone home and gone to bed.”

“Apparently your wife has more fortitude than you credit her for,” Sherlock said dryly. “Also, she is capable of eating a great deal more food than I would have thought possible for such a small person.”

John snorted. “You should have seen her on the cruise. I don’t know where she puts it all.”

“Should I wake her?”

“Nah, let her sleep. I’ll shower and change and be over soon. Don’t wait up for me,” John yawned.

Sherlock stalked back into the sitting room and stared down at his unexpected guest. It was not odd that Mary was here—she had lived on Baker Street with him and John whilst John had been recuperating from his knife wound. But it was odd for her to be here without John. She looked, if possible, even smaller than usual, huddled on the sofa, her face pulled into a little frown as she lay shivering. Shivering! Ah! One customarily placed a blanket over a sleeping person, didn’t one? Sherlock cast about for the afghan and then realized that, in the most inconvenient manner, Mary had spread it out underneath herself. He considered all the mysterious stains on his sofa and felt he could hardly blame her. Should he get her a blanket from his own bed? But then HE would be cold, and she wouldn’t want that. 

At last, he took off his Belstaff and spread it out over her sleeping form. It was strange, how his heart contracted with affection when she sighed contentedly and snuggled under his coat like a child.

It was after two in the morning, and even consulting detectives grow weary, especially when there is nothing interesting going on. Sherlock took the shortest of showers and dressed quickly in pyjamas and dressing gown. All the while, he was aware of Mary, coughing. At first, it was just a sharp, choking sound, as if there were a tickle in her throat. But as he went into the kitchen to fix himself a final cup of tea, he realized her cough had swiftly grown deeper and harsher and had now become a rather breathless wheezing. Perhaps Mary had caught pneumonia on the cruise! But she had seemed fine this morning. Frankly, she had seemed fine ten minutes ago. Sherlock wondered what to do. Should he offer her some tea with honey? He walked into the sitting room just as she fell off the sofa with a crash. He rushed to her, dropping to his knees at her side, his heart thudding with concern.

“Bag!” Mary gasped weakly, barely able to speak, and realized she was trying to pull herself a few feet away to where her handbag lay beside the coffee table. Sherlock fetched it for her, and she clumsily tried to dump out the contents onto the floor, her body racked with coughing. “EpiPen,” she managed to wheeze, her eyes rolling back in her head as she collapsed, all her energy focused on pulling in the next breath.

He froze. EpiPen! A sudden terror gripped him. Now a memory flooded back into his mind of John showing him how to use an EpiPen and explaining how important it was never to expose Mary to . . . tobacco smoke! Sherlock had dismissed it at the time as an overly-hysterical dislike of cigarettes. Apparently, Mary really DID have an allergy! Frantically, he rummaged through the contents of Mary’s bag (why did women carry so much useless junk?) until he found the epinephrine hypo, wishing all while he dared take the time to call John for directions. But every second counted. Mary was nearly unconscious now, and her breathing was laboured and dangerously slow. Administering the medication was simple and took but a second, but Sherlock’s hand shook and he was finding breathing to be nearly as difficult as Mary was. The rale in her lungs sounded to him like a death-rattle. His heart sank.

It frightened him, how fond he’d grown of this astonishing young woman. If anything should happen to her, what would he do? He realized now that losing her would be as painful as losing John. And this was his fault. This was all his fault. He’d put that smoke-soaked coat over her. John would never forgive him. He would never forgive himself. He had killed his best friend’s wife with his carelessness, his heedlessness. He had killed his friend. Mary was his friend, and he had killed her. How could he have done such a thoughtless thing?

“Mary!” he called sharply, inexplicably angry. “Mary! You must breathe! I forbid you to die! I just won’t have it! Do you hear me? John and I can’t do without you. Do as I tell you and breathe! Listen to me! Breathe!”

Her wheezing increased alarmingly, and for a moment of time he was horrified, imagining she was in her final death-throes. But then he slowly realized that she was laughing-- fighting for air, but laughing.

“I,” she puffed. “Love. You. Too.” Inexplicably, Mary always knew what he meant, whatever he said. Then, “Phone!” she gasped, gesturing, and went into a coughing fit.

Yes, of course! He should call for help! Punching the speed dial, he waiting impatiently for an answer. A sleepy, but carefully controlled voice said cautiously, “What is it at this time of night, Sherlock?”

“Mycroft, Mary is dying! An ambulance won’t be fast enough—send a helicopter. Now!” he barked urgently.

“Good lord!” Mary croaked out, pushing herself into a half-sitting position and snatching the phone from his hand. “Not dying!” She drew a strangled breath and coughed. “Ambulance fine.”

“Then I shall call one for you,” Mycroft said in what was a strangely comforting manner. “Where are you? Baker Street?”

“Yeah,” Mary rasped. “Thanks.” And she dropped back onto the floor, panting.

Sherlock frowned. Mary was not dying. This was a good thing. But he still felt a dreadful remorse.

“I’m sorry I nearly killed you,” he told her soberly. “I ought to have remembered your allergy.”

She smiled up at him affectionately. “You saved me,” she reminded him, pointing at the spent EpiPen. “My hero!” She closed her eyes, exhausted.

Sherlock sat silently, flooded with relief, and watched her breathe. It was the most wonderful thing he’d ever seen in his life, he was sure. He had not killed Mary. She was not angry with him. She still loved him. Mary was alive, and John wouldn’t have to kill him. 

He hoped.


	3. Suture Self

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our newlyweds learn not to underestimate each other.

He’d managed to slip into the bedroom, strip, and shower, and his wife—notorious for sleeping like dead thing—never even twitched a muscle. But as he eased himself into bed, she hummed in her sleep, turned over, and settled herself against him. He wasn’t sure if it was reflex or if she was slowly waking up; he just knew that the sweet weight of her head on his shoulder was worth coming home for.

“All criminals dispatched?” Mary murmured into his chest.

“Being processed as we speak,” John replied with some satisfaction. He knew he sounded insufferably pleased with himself, but tonight had been the fruitful result of weeks of hard work. Sherlock had done all the deductions, of course, but John had done most of the legwork involved in gathering the evidence that would ensure a conviction. “We took a lot of drugs off the market tonight, as well.”

He could feel her smile against his shoulder. “Good work, Captain.” She wrapped an arm around his waist and squeezed. 

He leaned over to kiss her. “How was your day, then?”

“Deadly dull,” she sighed. “I’m glad you’re home.” Then she lifted her head and sniffed. John froze.

“You’re bleeding!” Mary exclaimed.

“Just a bit,” he shrugged. “It’s nothing.”

But she knew what “nothing” meant. “Did you go to A & E?” she demanded.

“No need. Took care of it myself.”

She sat up straighter. “You SUTURED yourself?” 

This put John a bit on the defensive. “Who says I needed sutures?” he said as mildly as he could.

He could feel her eyes on him in the dark, scrutinizing him. John Watson had not married a fool. “You did, didn’t you? You stitched yourself up.”

Most of the time, John felt as if he had known Mary forever. They were perfectly in sync, thought alike more times than not. But now he was suddenly aware that they had not actually known each other for very long at all. There were still quite a few experiences they had not yet had together. Lestrade had said that Mary had shown incredible presence of mind and composure when John had been stabbed, back when they had first become engaged. But John had never come home to her injured before, and he wondered now if her calm demeanour extended to situations like this. He considered his answer carefully.

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” he said lightly, and waited. What would it be? Anger? Worry? Tears?

Mary snorted with unladylike laughter. “My lovely idiot. Why didn’t you just come home and let me do it?”

He smiled in relief. “I would have, if he’d gotten me someplace I couldn’t reach.”

Leaning back to turn on the bedside lamp, Mary demanded cheerfully, “Let me see!”

Obligingly, he twitched back the blanket to show her the stitches in his thigh. “Is this wifely concern, or medical curiosity?” he inquired.

“Why can’t it be both?” She examined his sutures closely, humming to herself softly. “Nice work, Doctor,” she said at last. “Any other injuries I should know about?”

He shook his head. “Just some minor cuts and bruises. No big deal.”

“Mind if I decide that for myself?”

He sighed, hiding a grin. “If you feel it’s absolutely necessary.”

“I do, in fact,” she returned pertly.

Satisfied that he was more or less intact, Mary finally turned off the light and snuggled up next to him again. Lifting her face for another kiss, she suddenly interrupted him with “How is Sherlock?”

“I sutured him, as well. He’s fine.”

“Is he here?”

“He’s on the sofa, dead to the world.”

Mary was quiet for a moment. “Perhaps I should go check on him,” she suggested.

John’s arm tightened around her, holding her to him. “He’s fine. Looking after him is part of my job. Or don’t you think I know what I’m doing?”

She chuckled. “Oh, I know full well that you know what you’re doing,” she assured him, chuckling.

“Well, then, shut up, woman, and let a man get some sleep!” he teased.

“Not likely!” she replied.

John had done a number of things that day of which he had a right to be proud. He and Sherlock had won a knife fight in which they were outnumbered two to one. They had saved a man’s life and had gotten some dangerous criminals off the street. They had found the drugs shipment they had been employed to discover and probably saved countless lives by getting it out of circulation. It had been a satisfying day. But John found that coming home was far and away the most satisfying thing he’d accomplished that day.

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Author’s Note: My husband is a police officer and an EMT. This story is based loosely on something that happened to us early in our marriage. Of course, I’m not medically trained, so I couldn’t have helped him if he’d needed it and I couldn’t really tell how good a job he’d done in doctoring himself. But he’s still alive, so I guess he did all right. 


End file.
